6 Good Things About ‘Game of Thrones’ Ending for the Year

It’s done. Game of Thrones, possibly the biggest pop culture phenomenon seen on television since M*A*S*H, has concluded for another year. There’s going to be some sour faces in the break rooms of the world tomorrow as we stare down a long winter waiting for the return (except here in Australia, we’re getting ready for summer).

But as Eric Idle would say, always look on the bright side of life. Here is the silver lining to Game of Thrones taking a break from our lives.

GETTING OUR EVENINGS BACK

For the past seven weeks it’s been assumed that you’re not making plans for the evening of the GoT broadcast. Even if you want to forego viewing and head out on the town no-one was going with you. Unfortunately GoT has clashed with our weekly D&D session, meaning delaying viewing or leaving the party hanging. It’s nice not to have that weekly decision any more.

THE CLICK-BAIT ARTICLES WILL STOP

As someone who follows a number of nerdy news feeds, I’ve been finding the morning browse quite repetitive. Every content farm and Buzzfeed knock-off have been jamming together headlines about Game of Thrones to drive up numbers even when they’ve got nothing to say. The real bottom of the barrel is Dorkly’s weekly ‘Questions We Still Have…’ feature where the writers demonstrates his complete lack of critical thought. Every week it’s the same “how did they get there so fast”, “why didn’t they just kill so-and-so” and so forth. These aren’t real questions, it’s empty and pointless content generated to generate clicks. Maybe without Game of Thrones internet commentators will put some thought into what they write.

LESS WHINGING ABOUT SPOILERS

We’ve spoken of this before: the moratorium on spoilers is going to be short for Game of Thrones. We should all be considerate of spoilers, especially when the broadcast is on air and the hours that follow. Give everyone the chance to watch it. However…there’s a limit. People will cry about spoilers for shows and movies that have been out for over a year. If you haven’t made the time for it, then it’s obviously not that important to you. If you’re putting off Game of Thrones you need to accept that millions of people have watched it and want to talk about it and complaining about it is unreasonable. If it’s an unavoidable delay, stay off the internet until you can watch it. We’ll all do our best not to ruin anything, but don’t whinge about it weeks later when you still haven’t caught up.

SMUG NON-VIEWERS CAN SHUT UP

As we said in the prior paragraph, we love talking about GoT. There’s so many unpredictable characters, deep mysteries and supernatural occurrences that everyone has an opinion or a theory to share. It’s natural that the day following a new episode will be rife with discussion. But then…

“Well I have never seen a single episode!”

In every workplace there’s that one. The person who doesn’t watch the show and will proudly declare this fact over the top of any conversation about it. Perhaps it’s a source of pride in not being involved in a fad, or a feeling of alienation at not joining the discussion. Either way there’s no way to respond to it. It’s not a contribution, it’s an interruption. Yes, well done, you’re very counter-culture, can we continue our chat?

NO MORE GETTING CREEPED OUT BY BRAN

Jesus, we need a break from the Three Eyed Raven.

THE ANTICIPATION

Remember that feeling of excitement when the new season starts up? We get to enjoy that sense of anticipation one more time…